Walking to work: Former Mayor Tom Selders hopes to walk sections of the trail as a part of his new duties as the trail manager

Tom Selders walks the Poudre River Trail just west of the 71st Avenue entrance. Selders is the new Poudre Trail manager and plans to walk sections of the trail almost every day to make sure it looks professional, especially after September's flood.

Tom Selders pauses near the start of the Poudre River Trail by the 71st Avenue trailhead. Selders is Greeley's former mayor but applied to be the manager after being involved with it since its inception.

The Poudre River Trail’s next event is perhaps its biggest, the Trail-A-Thon, from 9 a.m. to noon May 10 at the Poudre Learning Center off 83rd Avenue and 10th Street. It is free but you do need to sign up to get a guaranteed free T-shirt. There are nine events, including a walk, a rock climbing wall and a dog jog with your own pooch. Go to www.poudretrail.org or call (970) 336-4044.

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Tom Selders had to learn at least one new skill as the new manager of the Poudre River Trail.

He had to learn how to hold his tongue.

Selders, after all, was mayor of Greeley from 2003-07, and he spent eight years on the Greeley City Council when he was first elected in 1993.

City staff answered to him. Now it’s the other way around.

He has a supervisor, Becky Safarik, the assistant city manager, who at one time gave him reports on the city’s growth and other issues as the longtime director of planning.

“It was an adjustment at first, to be honest, and maybe a little awkward,” Selders said. “I’ve had to tell myself to keep my mouth shut. I may have said some things as mayor that I shouldn’t say now. I have had to be more diplomatic.”

In fact, this is Selder’s first time in a structured work environment, with regular hours, volunteers to oversee and, yes, someone to answer to, in at least a decade. That, he said, has been the biggest challenge of his new job. Selders already knew how to load a bag of concrete and run a project, such as building a new parking lot, and accomplish administrative tasks, such as running a board meeting or writing grants or organizing documents. But Selders, 68, was used to working his own hours, as the owner of Greeley Computer Services, and he was enjoying a kind of retirement.

Now, however, he admits he was looking for something to do. When former manager Mike Sidwell resigned to go to graduate school, Selders, as a longtime board member and trail supporter, volunteered to take it over on an interim basis. He then decided to apply for a job and was hired just a few weeks ago.

He found what he was looking for: There’s plenty to do. This may be one of the busiest years the trail’s seen in a while.

There will be plenty of events, including the annual Trail-A-Thon on May 10, a couple of moonlight bike rides and an obstacle course race on Sept. 10. But there will also be plenty of improvements.

This summer the Sheep Draw trail will finally connect to the Poudre, a longtime request of trail users, something that will not only add some spice to the Poudre Trail but will also make it easier for neighborhood residents to get on it from their house rather than having to drive to it. The connection will be made at the bridge adjacent to 59th Avenue north of F Street.

There are those who will have to continue to drive to get to the 21-mile trail, and Selders hopes to help with that as well by building a new trailhead on the west side of 59th Avenue. The parking lot should be east of the Duran section and west of 59th. That depends on getting a state grant, but if the trail does get it, it oculd be built this summer. If not, the trailhead will get built eventually but maybe not as soon.

“We do need an additional trailhead,” Selders said. “So it’s really just a matter of when.”

Another question of when, not if, is the spring runoff season and more flooding. Selders believes the trail will flood, but he doesn’t seem concerned about the problems it will cause.

“It IS a river trail,” he said. “We’ll just close the portions we have to and make do with what we have.”

Selders was involved since the beginning, from his time on the council and as a board member, but he was interested as a user. Selders spent many miles running the trail to prepare for his marathons and biking it to train for Ride the Rockies. Now he plans to spend a little bit of most days out on the trail. He hopes to walk as many sections as he can to look for bent sign posts and crumbling stone markers. The flood did beat up the trail a bit; although pieces or sections weren’t lost, the water did batter fences, edges and signs.

“The goal is to keep it as professional looking as possible,” Selders said. “It would be fun to walk it and ride and run it every day. But there’s a lot of other work to do too.”